


Small Miracles

by HAL_berd



Category: Dragon Nest (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, May Altea rest his soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 22:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HAL_berd/pseuds/HAL_berd
Summary: Velskud has his own holiday ghosts.





	Small Miracles

When Velskud opens his eyes, he is in that cursed Cellar in Saint's Haven, and the sword is still red and gold, and Geraint is not gone.

"My friend, do not think I cannot smell you just because I cannot see you," he hears the man croak good-naturedly from his place on the floor. "Come."

Velskud sees his old friend's eyes welded shut with the stroke of a scar, a pattern of wounds trailing from cheek to hairline, and he does not move.

Geraint smiles. The room lights up for his intruder like it hasn’t for well over fifty years.

"What are you waiting for?” the vision questions. "It is the holidays, I am alone, and I smell food on you. Don't tell me you have come to taunt a dying dragon with a feast you will not share."

He is too accepting, Velskud realizes and bitterly dismisses this as another demented dream. Soon, he knows Geraint will twist and morph, sprout maggots from a hole in his chest, spill blood on his guilt-ridden companion's face, and fade into dust that slips between Velskud's fingers.

And perhaps that is why he deems it fine for him to indulge in this small torture.

He walks closer to Geraint, close enough to lay out the food that had inexplicably been in his hands, but far enough so that when this projection inevitably turns sour, he can avoid the splattering gore.

It’s a modest feast at best—two roast turkey legs and a warm loaf of sweet bread—but when Geraint breathes it in, he sighs like it is a meal fit for kings. The man blindly reaches for food and misses.

Sheepish, Geraint sits back and coughs, which is at first the manifestation of a nervous tic, but devolves quickly into a full-blown hacking, shaking fit, and Velskud thinks, _This is it. This is where it turns._

But Geraint is soon smiling (albeit weakly) and waving away his concern.

"Look at me," he says. "Look at how pitiful I have become, too crippled to even pick up a drumstick. My friend, if you would like to cross swords with me right now, I can assure you your first victory."

Despite himself, Velskud has to give at least a small chuckle at that. “You were always the better swordsman."

"And as long as you have not beaten me, I still am," Geraint answers, a taunting grin on his ruined face. Any other time, a Velskud might have risen to the bait, but it is not fifty years ago, and Geraint is not alive enough for him to adopt any mean spirit, even in jest.

Moments pass, and Velskud, bold enough now to participate in this farce, guides his friend's hand to the bone of a turkey leg.

“I never knew you to enjoy a meal, Geraint."

Geraint laughs, wheezes, his response: "No, no, that has not changed. Argenta is furious that I am not feeding myself adequately to recover," he says. "But to break bread with a dear friend on the holidays is tradition, is it not?”

Velskud is silent.

“I know you are still there, my friend. I smell you over the food."

And then Velskud decides, since this is a dream, that it does not matter.

"I was never using you," he mutters hurriedly. "When I took the luster from you that day there was not a thought in my mind about turning it over to Elena. My fondness was never fake. Never for you."

Geraint smiles patiently, unfazed by Velskud's abruptness.

"I have already forgiven you."

They eat in silence, and when they break the sweetbread between the two of them, the hard crust splits into a warm, soft center that gives off steam enough to warm two pairs of calloused hands and twine and twist around itself as it drifts towards the ceiling and then Velskud wakes up.

The low fire makes the blue in Geraint's sword look the faintest shade of red.

The girl that carries the warm energy, energy that feels so much like _his_ , walks in out of the drifting snow. She brings a basket.

"Happy Holidays, Chickie!" Daisy calls out enthusiastically. "I brought something special for you!"

She feels like him. She feels like _him_. _She feels like him_.

From her basket, Daisy pulls out a loaf of sweetbread, gone slightly cold from the weather outside.

“Split it with me,” she says. 

And he pulls the bread apart with her like he did with Geraint, and there is no steam, and it’s not quite as crispy on the outside, and the insides are not so warm and soft.

But Velskud's eyes still go hot.

_She feels like him._

“Thank you," he rasps. "Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I know the fandom's pretty dead and lore based fanfiction is sparse, but I just wanted to post this thing I wrote for something because I liked it.


End file.
